#SOSVenezuela: Who’s doing the killing? UPDATED

Six documents stamped with the seal of the Venezuelan army show clearly that as far back as December 2001, agents of then-President Hugo Chávez —Mr. Maduro’s mentor—sought to build a paramilitary. What is more, the recruitment efforts targeted military bases in order to incorporate army personnel into this nonuniformed militia. In other words, the Chávez government was looking for trained professionals who could handle weapons.

Miguel Rodríguez Torres, then a lieutenant colonel, was one of the recruiters, according to one document. Today Mr. Rodríguez is Venezuela’s minister of the interior, the cabinet post charged with state security. The interior ministry’s mission includes supporting “grass roots organizations.” That would include the country’s “Bolivarian Circles,” which are modeled on Castro’s “committees to defend the revolution.”

Ostensibly the Bolivarian Circles are civic-minded community groups. But chavista street violence is carried out by organized, trained and well-armed civilians, another aspect of the Cuban model. If they aim their guns well, now we know why.